With many developmental football spring leagues kicking off in just a few months, several teams are already playing pre-season games to get a feel for where they stand before the season is underway. On Saturday, the Capital City Bison edged off the Texas Scorpions 12-7 in Round Rock, Texas, in a pre-season match-up.

“It was a low-scoring game and the weather didn’t help a bit at all,” Bison special teams coach Deacon Gilmore told Developmental Football USA. “All day it was warm with no wind just like a regular spring or summer day, then as it approached kickoff, it got arctic cold and wind from nowhere.”

The weather limited what both teams could do offensively, but the Scorpions found more success through the air and struck first to lead 7-0.

“It was a back-and-forth game,” Gilmore said. “It was mostly an on-the-ground game. They had a nice power receiver they would throw the jump ball to and they scored first on a busted coverage.”

The Bison rallied back from that touchdown and scored one of their own before halftime, but failed on a two-point attempt to go into the break, down 7-6.

“They got the ball back after half and I think had a turnover on downs on a sack by Clay Jones in the backfield and we drove down again, but they stopped us as we had our third turnover,” Gilmore said.

Both teams battled back-and-forth in the second half until Bison running back Alvin Smith busted a touchdown run to take the lead and eventually the win.

“We had a run by Alvin Smith on the outside, 20 yards give or take, to get the go-ahead 12-7,” Gilmore said.

“Both teams played good, our run game showed promise. With the wind, we couldn’t get our passing game going, it made it hard to throw the ball. The Scorpions threw it better, their quarterback is a little bit more seasoned than our guy at this time.”

The Scorpions were without many of their key players, including Semipro Hall of Fame linebacker Trae Ivory.

“Unfortunately, I’d gotten food poising and didn’t make it,” Ivory told Developmental Football USA. “I did see some footage from the game. We’ve got a lot of rookies and we took the game last minute, we had an opponent back out. The majority of the veteran players did not make it to that game.

“It was an opportunity for a lot of young guys to get a lot of reps and show what they could do. We didn’t play a good game at all, we didn’t play nowhere near the standard of what we look for. We lost on a last minute touchdown 12-7.”

Despite the loss, the Scorpions, which had several key pieces missing, saw some positives from many of their rookies.

“Our defensive standard is to only give up 13 points,” Ivory said. “We gave up 12, so we did ok as well as the young guys go, but I would like to have had us stand up and not give up that last minute touchdown.”

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